Canary Crisis

Something has been bothering the canaries. A couple of times now we have found them quite badly knocked about. Last time two of them were on death's door.
Snowy and Pyro both seemed to have broken bones in their claws and possibly wings.They recovered at last though Pyro was still a bit wonky on his foot.
Then one night while Bill was up gaming, he heard a noise and went to investigate.
It was a fox.
Bill gave chase and  pursued it across a few blocks and was optimistic that it wouldn't return.
I didn't have the same optimism and last night my fears were proven well founded.

Again Bill was gaming. He heard a bang and went out. Pyro was in a very bad way. The injuries he suffered are beyond comprehension. We can only guess that he must have hit the wire and knocked himself out and then the fox was able to claw at him somehow.

There was no recovering for Pyro this time round so when I got up this morning there was a tissue box coffin waiting for me to bury.

So my day has been devoted to the birds. The cage had been partitioned when the two male canaries had begun a battle to death war. Now that we have only one cock-bird, I could remove the partition and all remaining birds can fly up away from the fox. The two bottom birds had always been much more hurt.

Then I set about turning 6 meters of calico into a cover. I pulled out my lovely husqvarna and set to:

6 meters of Calico previously used as a drop sheet for my painting.

 Each side of the cover can be lifted up and out of the way and the back and front panels wrap around the sides to help make it a bit more secure.

Somebody iron this please?

 I have 'tailored' it to perfectly fit over the peeked roof  and corners of the cage. One of the girls was quite impressed with my sewing skills 'compared to' hers. I pointed out that as it had been my career for a longish portion of my life, it would be a crying shame if our skills were on par!

Canaries scatter more then they eat!

I completely cleaned the veranda after the gruesome night's mess- but canaries are messy little buggers even when they are not being murdered! There is so much seed mess that we now have a colony of squeaky pigeons who live here. When we are in the family room looking, they will lurk over in the neighbouring block and pretend to eat the rocks there. As soon as you turn your back, you can hear the squeak of their wings as they fly over for real lunch!

And the mess they make after eating matches the canaries vefore efforts!